I've received lots of email about my wife's catch-22 traffic ticket problem (in short, she is trying to pay the ticket but the court won't accept payment because the ticket hasn't been entered into the computer system yet. And the reason it hasn't been entered into the computer system, apparently, is because the officer who issued the ticket didn't enter the date in the date field).
I'd like to thank everyone who wrote to me about this. We got rid of the messages boards on Boing Boing over a year ago, and I'd kind of forgotten how nice and generous 99.9% of Boing Boing's readers are! It's inspiring and uplifting to get email from so many exellent people.
I thought you'd be interested to read the advice I've received about this so far. There are lots of ideas, but the four most common ones are:
1. Get a lawyer.
2. Get a cashier's check and pay the fine with it (sending it by certified mail).
3. Contact the officer who issued the ticket and ask him what the status of the ticket is.
4. Contest the ticket, because it is invalid with a date on it.
Our next steps: we are going to call a lawyer friend who has dealt with ticket problems before, and we are calling AAA, which apparently has a department that helps people deal with traffic tickets.
Here's one thing that might help (click on thumbnail for enlargement). When my wife went down to the court to attempt pay the ticket yesterday, the clerk gave her this "Proof of Appearance" statement. Hopefully, it'll convince the judge that we tried to take care of the matter.
Here is the email I've received so far. Link
UPDATE: We ended up WINNING! Here's the thrilling conclusion.
